Clinton Releases New, Expanded AIDS-Free Generation Plan, Backs HIV-Preventing Drugs, Targets Stigma

Clinton Campaign Releases Detailed Plan to ‘Tackle HIV and AIDS Together’ – Calls for Expanded Utilization of PrEP

Hillary Clinton’s campaign Wednesday released its detailed plan for an AIDS-free generation, calling it “within our reach.”

The plan details the importance of expanding critical programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), strengthening the Obama Administration’s National HIV/AIDS Strategy, partnering with advocacy groups for public education, expanding the utilization of HIV-prevention medication and fighting drug addiction.

Clinton, who also worked to fight HIV/AIDS both as a U.S. Senator and as Secretary of State (photo), also plans to expand the country’s investment in research to accelerate progress, using programs like PEPFAR to ensure that “significant study questions related to HIV and AIDS are identified, funded and answered.” The plan also calls for the expanded utilization of HIV prevention medications such as PrEP, which it calls a “promising innovation.”

“The AIDS crisis in America began as a quiet, deadly epidemic,” the statement accompanying the plan reads, “and because of discrimination and disregard, it remained that way for far too long. When many in positions of power turned a blind eye, health care providers, activists, scientists, and ordinary, heroic people fought with courage and compassion for a nation commitment to address the disease.”

The statement cites the efforts of these individuals for the many breakthroughs in treatment and prevention, but cautions that “HIV and AIDS are still with us.” According to aids.gov, over 1.2 million people in the United States are living with HIV, with one out of eight people unaware of it, and the World Health Organization reports that 36.7 million people were living with HIV and AIDS worldwide in 2015. “Hillary Clinton,” the statement continues, “believes we have to tackle this work together.”

Doing so, according the plan, includes convening groups to adopt “aggressive and attainable timelines for ending AIDS.” It credits the Obama Administration’s National HIV/AIDS Strategy as “an important roadmap in our march against an AIDS-free generation in the United States,” and vows to strengthen it to align with the timelines developed by experts and advocates.

Under Clinton’s plan, the Affordable Care Act will also be defended and expanded upon. It is credited as having ensured “insurance companies [could] no longer deny coverage based on a pre-existing HIV diagnoses,” and requiring health insurance plans to “cover lab tests, preventative services such as HIV screenings, and chronic disease management tools.”

It continues that, “Clinton will place particular emphasis on expanding evidenced-based prevention, treatment, and community outreach initiatives for at-risk groups, including black men who have sex with men (MSM), transgender individuals, African American women, and injection drug users.”  

The emphasis includes a $10 billion initiative to combat drug addiction, which the plan calls “a national epidemic that our nation is failing to address” that is connected with the HIV and AIDS epidemic. The partnership between local, state and federal government, the plan says, will further help to prevent and treat addiction.

The full plan can be read here, and further details the campaign’s intention to partner with advocacy groups for public education in the United States and abroad, working to reform the HIV criminalization laws and end stigma and discrimination.

Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump’s website currently offers only seven campaign positions, none of which include policies on HIV or AIDS. (The Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, however, has made his stance on the matter quite clear.)

Daniel Driffin, the first gay man living with HIV to address a national party convention in 12 years, made his own position clear last week at the Democratic National Convention. “We know how to prevent the virus now. We know how to diagnose the virus now. We know how to treat it and we know how to suppress it… What do we do to fight HIV/AIDS today?”

“We invest in research and education. Expand treatment and prevention,” he continued. “And we elect Hillary Clinton.”

The full video can be seen below:

 

Image: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers a speech about HIV/AIDS at the National Institutes of Health, November 2011
Photo by NIH Image Gallery via Flickr and a CC license